Dear editor:
There is no place for the Confederate Battle Flag in American public life in the 21st century. The use of symbols give them definition and power. It is not the symbol, it is how the symbol was and is used that is at the heart of our current debate. Those who would like to retain the flag use words like valor, history, Southern heritage and honoring ancestors. Those who would like to see the flag come down also use the terms of history, heritage and ancestral identity. They, however, experienced this history and heritage very differently. They add words like lynching, beatings, bombings and, of course, the buying and selling of their ancestors.
There is simply no moral equivalence between these two visions of the Confederate flag and we should stop pretending there is. One view is subjective, the other objective. Those supporting the flag can affirm the valor of their ancestors without affirming their cause. We should recognize that there is a direct line between the events of the 1860s and the 1960s; a direct line between the 1960s and the 2015 killings in Charleston.
For all of us, the events of the 1800s are an abstraction. We were not there; it was a different era with different cultural sensitivities. This is not, however, true for the 1950s and '60s. Many of us were there. We lived through those times. We saw the violence and oppression first hand. No amount of historical rewrite is going to change what we actually experienced.
The three iconic symbols of white supremacy in the 20th century were the white hood, the burning cross and the Confederate Battle Flag. By far the most visible was the Confederate Battle Flag. The flag was everywhere as a symbol of segregation, hate, oppression and violence. Wherever churches were burned and bombed, civil right workers killed, folk beaten, the spirit of that flag was there. The symbolism of the Confederate flag was changed forever and can never be the same again. Those who still find positive meaning in this flag must come to grips with the reality that for most of the 20th century it was the banner for domestic- and often state-sponsored terrorism. That is not to say that all who revere the Confederate Battle Flag are white supremacist or racist; it should be easy to conclude, however, that all white supremacist and racist revered the Confederate Battle Flag.
Hot Springs needs to look at the history of this flag in American life and decide if this is the proper symbol to be flying over one of our major intersections. Now that the discussion has been engaged, more visitors will be sensitive in noticing that flag. Does this symbol represent the people of Hot Springs and its government? I strongly encourage our city leaders to begin a dialogue with the United Daughters of the Confederacy to bring down that flag.
Sam Albright
Hot Springs
Editorial on 07/01/2015